


Of Curses and Soulmates

by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- (strangeandintoxicating)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cloud is a Turk and Zack's a SOLDIER, M/M, Mentions of past Zack/Aerith if you squint, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26220235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/pseuds/Strange%20and%20Intoxicating%20-rsa-
Summary: Cloud Strife was a lone wolf: he’d been born alone, lived alone, and would die alone.Cloud Strife didn’t need anyone.Cloud Strife certainly, and most positively, didn’t need a soulmate.In which a very bitter and jaded Cloud Strife finds himself back in Midgar five years after joining the Turks. A rouge assassin with a stray bullet pulls an unrequited love back into the fold.Why is it that the only thing that makes Cloud feel whole is touching the man who broke his heart so many years ago?
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 18
Kudos: 130





	Of Curses and Soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for Bri! I hope that you like it!

Cloud Strife was a lone wolf: he’d been born alone, lived alone, and would die alone. 

Cloud Strife didn’t need anyone.

Cloud Strife certainly, and most positively, didn’t need a _soulmate_. 

It was a silly thing that children were told, no different than the fairy tale of the gallant knight who rode a Nibel Wolf into battle against a dragon who wanted to steal away his lover, fighting against the beast with his lover’s sliver of materia flush against his throat. 

That one, Cloud thought with a scowl, had always been his favorite. Even at the brink of death, overpowered and broken, the knight fought and fought, until he stared up at the dragon and its flaming, snarling mouth. It was only then, when all hope was lost, that the materia around the prince’s throat thrummed against his skin and absorbed the fire, healing the knight and saving him from most-certain doom. 

The knight had gone home proud and victorious, yearning for the touch of his soulmate’s skin against his. They were bonded in a way that no other could break, tied together for eternity. By saving each other, a bond was formed that could never be broken. 

Now that he was older and wiser and with five years of technical materia usage under his belt, Cloud knew the truth: that materia was an elemental materia and the knight hadn’t been saved by the forces of love, but sheer dumb luck. Nothing romantic to do with it.

Even a grunt knew that much. 

Professor Hojo had been particularly interested in hearing about the Nibelheim folklore and traditions, though Cloud had never really understood why. The man had creeped Cloud out something fierce, and his interest in something so unscientific had always bothered Cloud. 

Yes, soulmates existed the same way magic and materia did— something Shinra probably wanted to figure out and either weaponize or profitize. The fact was that he lived in a world where soulmates existed and that people put more credit on the notion that “true love saved the day” more than tough work, tenacity, and flat out _stubbornness_. 

And that? That just pissed Cloud off. He didn’t need someone to save him — Cloud could save himself. 

If there was anything living in Midgar had proven to Cloud, it was that the only thing people cared about were themselves. Frankly, Cloud couldn’t blame them. People sucked. The very idea of a soulmate sucked. He didn’t need to be _blessed_ with a soulmate.

Except, well… 

He, very unfortunately, was _cursed_ with one, instead. 

It left a bitter taste in Cloud’s mouth, because every bit of blood, sweat, and tears he’d put into becoming a SOLDIER, then Turk, meant nothing now. 

His bravery was nothing. Him taking a bullet to protect President Rufus Shinra meant diddily-squat because First Class SOLDIER Zack Fair had shown up and laid his hands on Cloud’s gaping wound, and just like that, the blood had stopped and the ringing in his ears faded and a hunger Cloud had never experienced in his life flooded through every single one of his pores. 

Zack fucking Fair was his soulmate, and it just wasn’t _fair_. 

He’d run as far as he could from Zack— ending up in Junon for the last five years just to avoid the other man. He’d done well there, made a life for himself as Rufus Shinra’s personal bodyguard. 

Hell, the only reason he had even come back to Midgar was because the former President and several members of the board had died in an _absolutely dreadful_ and _completely unexpected_ accident. The entirety of the Turks had been asked (or, rather, _forced_ ) to come back for the inauguration, though Cloud had fully intended on heading back to Junon the minute Rufus signed off on it. 

But all it had taken was one dumb assassin to unravel all of the work Cloud had put in to ignoring Zack Fair’s very existence. Every email deleted, every phone call ignored, every hallway backed out of had meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. He’d even avoided any and all chatter from the other Turks about the goings-on in Midgar, if for nothing else than to avoid the pitter-patter of his broken heart all over again. 

It was a cosmically cruel joke that it had been Zack to have saved him. 

The other Turks seemed to be taking some sick, perverse pleasure in his suffering. Starting with their comments on how dreamy and wonderful Zack was (from Cissnei and Elena) to how the SOLDIER had been the reason Tseng had even accepted Cloud into the Turk program (Cloud didn’t want to think about what that meant) and even that it was romantic (fuck you in particular to _Rude_ of all people) Cloud had done nothing for a week but listen to his coworkers fawning over the SOLDIER through email and text.

When Reno showed up to his apartment with a tabloid with his and Zack’s faces splayed across the front and a box of fried chicken, Cloud had taken the chicken and thrown the tabloid at Reno’s head. 

Reno looked like a shark when he smiled, all teeth and harsh lines. “Don’t be like that, Cloudy-boy. You know the boss is—“

“Pissed that we let an assassin within shooting distance?” Cloud asked, voice flat as he tried to slam the door shut, only for Reno to sharply cry out when it smashed into his foot. 

“What the fuck’s that for?!”

“You’re on my property.” 

Technically it was Shinra’s property, which Reno made very clear as he shimmied the door open further.

“C’mon, you still did good. Tseng ain’t mad at you—they wanna give you and Fair an award for saving the Prez.”

Cloud narrowed his eyes and scratched at the back of his neck. Zack hadn’t done anything to deserve a fucking award. “I’ll pass.”

The way Reno looked at him in that moment reminded him of the way his mom would when he was a little boy. That or the way Tseng would look at him when Cloud would purposely misinterpret an order just enough to get what he wanted and not enough to actually compromise the mission. 

It reminded Cloud of the day he’d shown up at the Turks office, still in his grunt uniform. He was supposed to go down to see Hojo for some new test, but what was the point when he didn’t want to be a SOLDIER anymore? 

Tseng had just stared at him for a long, hard moment before signing off on the dotted line without a word. 

“We both know that’s bullshit,” Reno said plainly without so much as a smile or snarl. “You’re jus’ scared.” 

Dick.

“Don’t be a big fuckin’ baby. He’s your soulmate whether you like it or not. Just tell me you’ve tried giving him a ca—c’mon, Strife! Lemme in!”

But Cloud had shoved Reno out the door with what little energy he had left, double-bolting the door shut before Reno could try again. 

“This is a fuckin’ _good_ thing! You’ve got a SOLDIER you can wrap around your fing—”

“Fuck off.”

“Bitch— let me in! You’re gunna have to get over this bad blood bullshit with Fair or you’re gunna scratch a hole in your damn neck!” 

Cloud did not, in fact, let Reno in. Instead, Cloud ate the chicken because it was still good chicken and really he was getting tired of paying the extra 500 gil for ChocoEats to drop food off at his front door. The tabloid he found shoved through his mailbox once Reno finally left got burned to crisp with a very well-deserved fire spell, though. 

Reno was lucky it wasn’t his head. 

They were all wrong, Cloud thought as he stared at the front cover as his and Zack’s faces disappeared into the raging inferno. 

There was nothing good about being Zack Fair’s soulmate. Nothing good at all. 

Cloud scratched at the back of his neck again. Reno had been right on that one. According to Moogle, the itching would only get worse the longer he and Zack stayed apart. Soulmates were meant to touch, to be together through thick and thin.

 _I’d rather claw my neck open_ , Cloud thought as he looked down at his fingernails, noting the tinge of dark red under his nails. 

Even if he would have rather used his neck like a scratching post, Cloud knew that he couldn’t stay locked up in his apartment forever. He would need to go back to work eventually— Tseng had given him the rest of the week off, for what reason Cloud was pretty sure had more to do with saving the new coffee machine from getting thrown at Reno than Cloud’s own well-being— but Cloud knew that if he wasn’t in the office on Monday there would be hell to pay. 

And Zack Fair would be waiting there to harass him. 

For what it was worth, Zack hadn’t shown up at his apartment like Reno had. No; he’d been far more insidious in his behavior— according to Tseng, Zack had immediately started showing up on the 39th floor of the Department of Administrative Research with a bouquet of flowers every morning like a lost puppy. 

It was… 

Infuriatingly sweet.

 _No_ , Cloud savagely thought as he stared at five bouquets of flowers spread across his dusty desk. Not infuriatingly sweet. 

Infuriatingly pathetic, maybe. But not sweet. 

A flash of a young woman filled Cloud’s memory— a pretty girl with green eyes and curly brown hair, a soft smile that the flowers seemed to curl toward like she was the sun. 

Zack Fair may have been his soulmate now, but Cloud knew the truth like a slap to the face. What Zack was feeling was just the urge, the call of a soulmate to its other half. If Zack had a choice, a _real_ choice, then it never would have been Cloud.

Grabbing hold of the nearest bouquet, Cloud tossed it into the trash so hard that it exploded on impact, the petals leaving a perfect circle around the trashcan.

That didn’t stop a sixth one from showing up no more than an hour later, this one with a SOLDIER First-Class attached to it. 

“Um… Cloud?” 

Cloud stared at the man he had fallen in love with nearly five years before, the man who Cloud had yearned and pined after for so long it felt ingrained in his DNA. 

The… the same man who’d stared at him like a deer in the headlights when he’d finally spilled his guts out like a badly-worded love letter. Cloud was so fucking stupid, so foolish. The training mat against his back felt like spikes, the body on top of him bricks inching him down. 

Cloud remembered turning his face away so he didn’t need to feel Zack’s breath on his lips. He didn’t want a mockery of a kiss. He… he didn’t want anything at all. 

What was worse than anything was that for that brief moment, Cloud had thought there was a chance. The soft touches and hidden glances, the way Zack and Cloud gravitated toward one another like planets caught in each other’s orbit, all of it had left Cloud with the futile dream that maybe someone like Zack could love someone like Cloud.

And then it had come crashing down.

_“Cloud… we can’t. No, wait— let me explain. Cloud, **please**.” _

“Go away.” It’d been easier to deal with Reno, despite the fact that Cloud had nearly an entire week to think about what he would say when Zack inevitably showed up. He’d thought of what he’d say, what he would do, but now that Zack was there, staring at him like Cloud was every star in the sky… it was too much.

Even now the sting of rejection burned at the corners of Cloud’s eyes. How was he supposed to forget that aching pain, that thrumming humiliation that felt like a knife to the chest?

Zack looked so goddamn earnest that it made Cloud’s throat burn. 

“I’m… I’m glad you’re doing okay. I’ve… I’ve been worried. I brought these for you.” Zack laid the flowers on his desk, the white and yellow petals glittering in the fluorescent lights overhead. “I thought you’d like them.” 

“I don’t.” 

Cloud stared at the clock just behind Zack’s head, the minute and hour hands a blur. How was it possible for time to stand still when all he wanted was for it to zoom by? 

How long was Zack going to stand there and stare at him? 

Turning in his chair, Cloud stared off into Tseng’s office, at the coffee ring stain worn into the wood. How long did it take for a ring like that to form? How long could one person just _stare_ at another? 

Why couldn’t Zack get a fucking _clue_?

“Cloud—” 

“You really should leave.” Cloud didn’t look away from the coffee ring. “They say if you separate soulmates for long enough, the magic will break.” 

“I don’t want to do that.” 

Cloud’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the man he had loved so much it physically ached. He pursed his lips, the words bubbling up before he could even think. “Well, I _do_. I’m leaving the minute Tseng clears me.” 

Years. It’d been years since he and Zack had said so much as a handful of words to one another since that night in the training room. He’d been foolish, then. Lovesick, even. Zack had been more than just his friend and mentor. He’d been the reason why Cloud wanted to become a SOLDIER… and then the reason why Cloud wanted to be anything but a SOLDIER.

“You don’t mean that, Cloud.” 

“I _do_.” 

He should have expected Zack’s to grab hold of his hand, the yearning to touch overriding self-preservation instincts, but Cloud hadn’t. He really, really hadn’t. 

He hadn’t wanted to, because the minute he felt Zack’s hand on his, it was like coming home.

Cloud snatched away his hand, throwing all his weight into the back of his rolling computer chair. It definitely wasn’t the best of decisions considering the fact that rather than sliding away from Zack’s grabby hands, all it did was flip the chair over.

Zack caught him, because _of course_ Zack caught him. 

He was so close that Cloud could see the purple in his eyes among the deep, unending blue that Cloud had fallen in love with and had taught himself to hate all those years ago. Cloud knew if he leaned forward he would feel those soft lips against his like he had wanted for so long, and that only made his heart break again. 

Zack reached up, fingers brushing under Cloud’s eye. It was soft, like a lover. 

Like a soulmate. 

“Cloud, _please_.” 

Zack’s voice broke, shattering the moment into a thousand days and a thousand tears. 

“This isn’t real,” Cloud said, voice shaking. “This is just the magic, Zack. Let it go. Let me go.” 

Zack righted the chair, his face the picture of agony. “You don’t mean that,” he repeated, voice wavering.

“It didn’t seem so hard for you last time.” 

Watching Zack break, watching him _hurt_ , should have made Cloud feel good, feel _vindication_. Not— 

Not _this_.

It shouldn’t have hurt him just as much to say as for Zack to hear, and just as quickly as he said it, Cloud wished he could take it back. In the years he had known and loved Zack from afar, never once had he seen Zack look so damn _sad_. 

Zack leaned down on both knees as though the energy keeping him standing drained out of him like all the color in his face. 

“Is that what you think?” Zack asked, hands gripping the armrests so tight Cloud could hear the plastic creak. “You think I wanted you to leave? You think it didn’t kill me to lose you? You think I didn’t dream for the last five years about getting to see you again?” The man made a sound somewhere between a growl and a sob. “I saw you get shot and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. If it hadn’t been for the magic… I don’t know what I would’ve done.” 

Cloud didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not after everything. 

“I told you I loved you and you made it very clear you didn’t feel the same.” Cloud could remember that day like it was yesterday. He’d been sixteen and so stupid. Why did he think that someone like Zack Fair could ever love a fuck-up like him? He had a girlfriend, a lovely lady who grew flowers and made the sun rise and set for Zack. “There’s nothing more that needs to be said.” 

Zack’s nostrils flared. “You didn’t even let me _explain_.” 

“There was nothing that needed to be _explained_ ,” Cloud spat back. “I may have been a kid, but I wasn’t stupid.” The venom in Cloud’s voice seemed to shock Zack, and Cloud took the chance to grab hold of Zack by the wrists to push him back. 

Zack hit the floor with a thump and startled cry, and Cloud had to fight every nerve in his body not to grab him and never let go. The feeling of skin against skin was the most alive Cloud had felt in his entire life. 

“Go back to your girlfriend, Zack,” Cloud whispered as he stood, legs like jelly under him. “Go back to forgetting about me.” 

Cloud only managed to get halfway out the office before Zack wrapped his hand around his wrist. Fucking SOLDIERs and their super strength. 

“I can’t forget you, Cloud. Don’t you get it? I’ve _never_ been able to forget you.” 

Cloud tried to yank his arm away, but Zack pinned it— and him— to the wall. His head arched back, but before it could hit against the plaster, Zack’s other hand was there to cradle the back of his skull. 

The electricity from Zack’s hand against his skin was enough to make his knees buckle under him, and had it not been for Zack’s grip, Cloud was sure that he would have fallen.

Five years had given Cloud another few inches, but looking up into Zack’s eyes made Cloud feel so incredibly _small_. 

“Cloud, please— I was trying to protect you,” Zack said, voice thick and eyes pleading. “Hojo was interested and I— I didn’t know what to do. Please, just listen to me.” 

“What about Aerith?” Cloud yelled back, but Zack only shook his head and tightened his grip.

“We broke up years ago— right after I met _you_.” 

“Liar.” 

But Zack had never been a good liar. 

Zack sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, leaning close to rest his forehead against Cloud’s. He clearly craved the contact just as much as Cloud did. “I’m not, I swear. When I found out Hojo was calling you in for those extra tests, I didn’t know what to do. I never wanted you to leave, but you couldn’t be in Midgar. I couldn’t put you at risk.”

Cloud laughed, though it felt as though he were choking up glass. “You think that makes it _better_?” he finally asked, staring into Zack’s eyes, long and hard, until Zack visibly _flinched_. 

For just a second, Cloud thought that Zack would let go and he could leave. Fuck Midgar, fuck Shinra, Fuck Zack Fair. He could catch the next flight out to Junon and be back in his apartment before sunset. He’d be alone, but that was all Cloud really needed. 

But then Zack had to open his mouth again and tear that dream down to the ground. 

Zack had always been so good at that, after all. 

“I hated every minute of it, Cloud. You think I didn’t want to kiss you that day? That it was easy for me to not go running after you and beg you to come back?” 

Cloud remembered how close they had been, how he’d felt Zack’s breath on his face, how it was Cloud who had turned his face away. It’d been too much, Zack’s rejection cutting like a sword through soft flesh. 

Zack was stupid, so fucking stupid, but so was Cloud.

"I never saved you," Cloud finally whispered, voice breaking the silence.

The pads of Zack's fingers ran against the scratch at the base of Cloud's neck like a prayer. The gentleness in his eyes made Cloud want to look away, but he didn't. 

He _couldn't_. 

Zack leaned close, his lips brushing against the shell of Cloud's ear. "You've always saved me." 

Perhaps it was the closeness of their bodies, of Zack’s forehead and hands on him and how their chests were flush to one another, but for the first time since leaving Midgar years ago Cloud felt… 

_Whole_. 

Cloud wasn’t sure who leaned forward first. All he knew was that Zack’s kiss tasted like fire and hope and something that made Cloud think of the story his mother told him of a gallant knight and his stupid elemental materia. 

It hadn’t mattered that the materia had been elemental. What had mattered was that the knight’s soulmate had given it to him. In his weakest moment, when all hope was lost, it had been the knight’s soulmate who had saved him. It hasn’t been through quick wit or planning, but dumb luck and love.

This didn’t erase all of the pain or heal all of the heartache. Some part of Cloud, the cynical part that had run the moment Zack had pulled away, knew that fairytales weren’t real and that true love couldn’t fix everything. But the fact was that Zack Fair was his soulmate whether he wanted him to be or not.

Cloud Strife admitted to himself as he reached up to grab Zack by the lapels and pull him in for a deeper kiss, that maybe, just _maybe_ , being cursed with Zack Fair as his soulmate wasn't the worst that could happen. 


End file.
